A Summit County grand jury indicted Brandon Kovach of Youngstown, who had planned to run for an Ohio House seat, on five felonies alleging he defrauded someone out of $410,000.

Kovach said the reason he was indicted is “because I was planning to run for state rep.”

A March 24 indictment against Kovach charges him with money laundering, aggravated theft, grand theft, telecommunications fraud and securing writings by deception. Kovach is to be arraigned April 6 in Summit County Common Pleas Court.

Kovach said he couldn’t comment on the indictment because he hadn’t seen it. The court docket shows a summons with a copy of the indictment was sent Thursday by certified mail to Kovach’s home.

Kovach initially had planned to seek the open Ohio House 58th District seat as a Democrat, but then chose to run as an independent after disaffiliating himself from the political party. But Kovach said Monday that because of health issues, he isn’t going to seek the position at all.

The indictment alleges Kovach “devised a scheme to defraud” $410,000 from a person between Aug. 22, 2019, and Dec. 3, 2021, and “that he did conduct or attempt to conduct a transaction knowing that the property involved in the transaction was the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity with the intent to conceal or disguise the nature, location, source, ownership or control of the property or the intent to avoid a transaction reporting requirement” under state law.

An Akron man won a $1,389,090 default judgment Oct. 25, 2022, in Summit County Probate Court against Kovach. A judge ruled Kovach improperly spent $460,000 of the man’s money and also ordered Kovach to pay $920,000 in punitive damages and $9,090 in legal fees as well as 3% interest.

The Akron man filed a lawsuit on April 12, 2022, contending Kovach approached him in the summer of 2019 with a proposal to improve the investment on his $460,000 in retirement funds. The man who filed the lawsuit alleged Kovach never responded to numerous inquiries about the retirement funds.

The Akron man’s attorney filed a motion for default judgment Aug. 29, 2022, against Kovach.

Summit Probate Court Judge Elinore Marsh Stormer filed an Oct. 25, 2022, judgment entry in favor of the default request because Kovach “failed to timely answer or otherwise plead in this matter as required.”

The judgment states Kovach didn’t respond to the lawsuit by the May 10, 2022, deadline, failed to return a waiver of summons and didn’t attend a Sept. 21, 2022, hearing on the default.

Stormer wrote: “The court finds all the allegations as set forth in the complaint to be confessed by (Kovach) to be true.”

The judge wrote Kovach “wrongfully and maliciously converted an aggregate of $460,000” that he used “for purchase of personal items and other non-authorized expenditures to the extent that (Kovach) diminished the funds entirely — all while concurrently and repeatedly breaching (his) fiduciary duties” under state law.

Kovach decided to not run as a Democrat for the state House seat, saying the party “wants to tell you who to vote for instead of letting you see who all your options are.”

Kovach was particularly displeased that John Boccieri of Poland, a former congressman and state legislator, got into the state House race.

Other Democrats running for the seat are Basia Adamczak, a former Youngstown City Council 7th Ward representative, and Jordan Pegues of Austintown.

Heather Fronk of Poland is the Republican candidate for the seat.

Kovach told The Vindicator on Feb. 3 that he would run for the position as an independent.

Those running in the primary needed 50 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. An independent candidate for that position needed at least 386 valid signatures to qualify.